Word: books
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...title-word "letters," superimpose them on a seven-month calendar using a quaint motto, so that the letters of the motto form the letters of "letters," then each letter of the motto will fall neatly onto a date in the calendar, one for each of the letters in the book...
...getting older, and he hasn't found his Theme. Letters is his middle-age-crisis objectified into a monstrosity. No one can fault Barth for wasting a decade of his life on it, if he just had to get it off his chest. But it's the kind of book a more discreet author would bury in his basement, for posthumous publication alone.JOHN BARTH...
...summarize 30 years of modern Asian history in a single volume is probably a little of both. A Turning Wheel is Shaplen's magnum opus, an enormous work on his years as a correspondent in Asia. Like any sweeeping work, it has its ups and downs. If Shaplen's book is flawed by the sheer breadth of his topic, it is held together by the author's personal approach. But A Turning Wheel is also a strangely unfulfilling work, copious in its detail, but marred by its omission of China...
...there is one problem with this book, however, it is the chapter on China--problem, because Shaplen has decided not to write one. In his conclusion, where he assesses China's impact on the surrounding nations in a scant ten pages. Shaplen offers us a weak-kneed rationalization. To discuss the mainland, he insists, would require an entire book. But elsewhere, he eagerly tackles Japan in less than 100 pages and the Philipines in even fewer. While one might expect this--American reporters' access to the mainland has been extremely limited--it leaves a gaping hole. A Turning Wheel...
Reviewing Shaplen's book is like reviewing 11 books: each chapter has a life of its own. On the Philippines. Shaplen is obsessed with Marcos; on Indonesia, he relies too heavily on economic figures rather than trends and on Korea, his history is hackneyed. But Shaplen surprises you when you least expect it. "More clearly than ever," he concludes, "the solution in Korea, difficult as it may be to achieve, remains unity, not two Koreas...